


Questions and Answers

by Scribbles97



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Emotional Whump, Pre-Season/Series 01, mild whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29857875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribbles97/pseuds/Scribbles97
Summary: @gumnut-logic gave me three prompts and I shoved them all into some Scott whump because I am apparently mean.The prompts were -1. Scott didn’t know what to do.2. He fell. He didn’t get up.3. It was his favourite flower
Kudos: 8





	Questions and Answers

Dad had always had the answers that he had needed, the solutions that far excelled anything Scott found himself coming up with. There were some answers in life that Dad had refused to give him though, what flowers to pick to give to Mandy French at their highschool prom, or if the Air Force was really the career route Scott had wanted to go down. So simple and so complex, Scott had never understood the logic behind which answers Dad would give him and which he wouldn’t. Grandma had once said something about Scott becoming his own man, and that it was part of growing up, that he couldn’t forever rely on other people’s opinions to make his own life choices. 

He’d known for a long time that Dad wouldn’t be around forever, that one day he would be the head of the family and be expected to have all the answers for both himself and his brothers. 

He’d never expected that day to come quite so soon though. 

Not like this. 

Everyone was looking to him, expecting him to have answers to questions he wasn’t even sure he could compute.

What would happen to International Rescue?

What about Alan’s school work?

Was Dad really gone?

He didn’t want to admit the answers for any of them. Questions that didn’t simply affect his life, but the lives of so many others around him too. 

Questions that affected the whole world, a world that had gotten so used to calls for help being answered by the heroic boys in blue. 

He wanted to get out, to hide from everyone and everything and just  _ grieve _ . Was he not allowed even that? Could they not all see as well as he could that Dad  _ had _ to be gone? It had been weeks, there was nothing, there was no other answer. 

Yet, he hadn’t the heart to confirm that. Not out-loud at least. 

It was an answer he was refusing to give. 

The same answer that was pushing him down, and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to get back up again if he admitted it to be true. 

Part of him didn’t want to get up again if he did find it was true. 

They’d lost Dad and they were just meant to carry on, keep up the job he had started, save those that needed it. Without his guidance, without him at Scott’s shoulder to back up and reassure, without his lectures and experience. 

Scott could only try to be that person. He could only give answers that sounded like what Dad would say, grow a spine enough to be that presence at his brother’s shoulders, use Dad’s lectures and experience as his own. 

The pressure was heavy though, a constant across his shoulders that he couldn’t shake. Running became more frequent, the circuit of the island frustrating him with how it always led back home eventually. It wasn’t the same relief as it should have been, his thoughts still racing as fast as he could, despite the searing ache in his legs each morning. 

He couldn’t not though, the house held too many reminders, too many ghosts. It was time he needed to be out, to at least try and outrun everything. 

Until the morning he stumbled. 

What had tripped him, he would probably never know. It was the same path he always took through the forest up towards the Round-House before heading back down to the beach on the far side of the island. He had thought he had known it by heart, one thing that was routine and simply didn’t change. 

Still, he had ended up face first in the dirt, hands stinging as they caught on gritty rock and legs screaming in relief. 

The breeze from the outcrop beyond the Round-House tousled his hair, salty air sticky against the sweat on his skin, and the rush of waves far below more soothing than he had ever noticed before.

He didn’t want to get up. 

Turning his head to one side, he ignored how the sharp edges of the rock cut into his cheek. It didn’t hurt, not really, not when everything else hurt so much more. 

His eyes were transfixed by the plant just off of the track, the small white flowers just coming into bloom in the little patch of sunlight that broke through the rest of the foliage. He knew the flower well, had seen drawings of it back in the villa, knew exactly where he could go to find it. 

It was Dad’s favourite flower. 

The name escaped him, but he remembered well the small white petals with the fuzzy middle. He remembered Dad telling him how fragile the flowers were, how a rain or a storm would rip them away from the plant. New flowers always came though, sometimes just weeks later, or sometimes not until the following year. 

It had been after Mom died, after Scott had finally snapped at Dad and screamed at him for letting the family down. Just a week later Dad had picked him up from school and taken him home to show him the sketch of the little flower. 

“You weren’t telling me about flowers.” He whispered to himself, closing his eyes against the sting. 

How had he never realised?

A young teenager, he had simply taken it as a peace offering, as a father wanting to reconnect with his eldest son that he had grown so distant from. 

Life was fragile. All it took was a gust of wind to blow everything off track and tear life as you knew it apart. Things would always realign though, somehow, some way. 

“How does it get better from this?” He breathed as the breeze brushed over his cheek, smudging the damp tracks there. 

He couldn’t even remember the name of the flower, and Dad wasn’t there to tell him.

He knew where it was though, the picture Mom had drawn so many years before still hung in the office -- Dad’s office -- the Latin name neatly scribed on the corner of the paper. 

What about all his other questions though? All the other things that Dad wouldn’t answer for him ever again. 

Blinking hard he looked back to the plant, the unbloomed buds pushing through despite how the breeze shook them. The fresh white flowers stood firm, refusing to give in. 

Scott wouldn’t give in. 

He couldn’t. 

He had family, brothers that needed him. There would always be a way to find the answers, a moment to just pause and think, what would Dad do?

Maybe he wouldn’t have all the answers, but Dad would. 

He could be Dad. If he tried hard enough, he could fill those shoes. 

Taking a breath he pushed himself up, despite the ache in his calves. 

It wouldn’t be easy, but if he tried hard enough, he could make Dad proud. 

He could have the answers too.


End file.
